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On his horseback trips through the border, where he studied the primitive manners of the Liddesdale people, and took down old ballads from the recitation of ancient dames and cottagers, he amassed the materials for his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1802.
For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing. "Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me.
When the first sounds assured him that some were stirring in the house, he quitted his room, and after some difficulty found a maid-servant, by whose aid he succeeded in getting into the garden. He took his way to the common where he had observed the preceding day, a fine sheet of water. The sun had not risen more than an hour; it was a fresh and ruddy morn. The cottagers were just abroad.
He had seen Lady Shuttleworth do it fifty times to the tenants, to the cottagers, at flower-shows, bazaars, on all occasions of public hospitality or ceremony; but practised and old as Lady Shuttleworth was this girl seemed yet more practised. She was a finished artist in the work, he said to himself as he leaned against the wall, his handsome face flushed, his eyes sulky, watching her.
Far and near her modest charities have penetrated among us; and far and near she is heartily beloved and blessed in many a laborer's household. There is no poor man's hearth, not in this village only, but for miles away from it as well, at which you would not be received with the welcome given to an old friend, if you only told the cottagers that you knew the Lady of Glenwith Grange!
There is the class that distinguishes itself by profuse kindness to poor cottagers, and by reading the Bible to blind old women; an occupation which as we know, from the most ordinary works of fiction, leads directly to the promptest and speediest attachments on the part of the young men who happen to drop in casually at the time. The catalogue of such is perhaps long and famous.
And yet, subdued though they may be, the cottagers usually manage to keep in tolerable spirits. A woman made me smile the other day. I had seen her husband a week earlier, and found him rheumatic and despondent; but when I inquired how he did, she conceded, with a laugh: "Yes, he had a bit o' rheumatism, but he's better now. He 'ad the 'ump then, too."
The elder of the cottagers sat upon the huge trunk of a tree, which had been felled beside the road, for the greater convenience of the traveller; and with eyes turned in the direction of the hill on which the sunlight had sunk and appeared to slumber, seemed to enjoy the vision with no less pleasure than our senior traveller.
Malory and her daughter shopped, it was the Vidame who took Mrs. Brown-Smith to inspect the ruins of the Abbey. The county neighbours had left in the morning, a new set arrived, and while Matilda had to entertain them, it was Mrs Brown-Smith whom the Vidame entertained. This kind of thing went on; when Matilda was visiting her cottagers it was the Vidame and Mrs.
Here Florence conceived a love for nursing and used to tend sick animals in the neighborhood and when she grew older, to sit up with and cheer the sick among the cottagers. There were not many people, even among those who were far older than herself, who could minister to the sick with her kindness and skill, and her fame soon was general through the neighborhood.
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